Teachers' Notes on Feminism and the Women’s Liberation Movement

Teachers' notes

This unique collection of oral history interviews captures the voices of those who powered the Women's Liberation Movement in Britain in the last three decades of the 20th century. This rich period provides an ideal topic for the secondary classroom, enabling students to become aware of the historical and ongoing battles for equal rights, to debate challenging issues that affect their own lives, and to use interviews as source material for research.

These teacher's notes provide ideas for activities in the secondary classroom. The activities will help encourage students to generate their own discussions both about women's liberation and the wider equality and human rights agenda. Students will be able to engage with the material as researchers, develop their own bodies of research, and produce creative responses inspired by the stories of the women and men on the site.

Arts Council England is an arts organisation that 'champions, develops and invests in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people's lives’

Association of Radical Midwives

The Association of Radical Midwives is an organisation of midwives, student midwives and others in the UK committed to improving the maternity care provided by the NHS

Black Cultural Archives Heart of the Race

Black Cultural Archives Heart of the Race is an oral history project of the Black Women's Movement. Takes 'The Heart of the Race' by Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie and Suzanne Scafe (Virago, 1985) as starting point

b-eat

b-eat is a charity that provides helplines, online support and a network of UK-wide self-help groups to help adults and young people in the UK beat their eating disorders

BL National Life Stories

BL National Life Stories is a collection of oral recordings that has the mission 'To record first-hand experiences of as wide a cross-section of society as possible, to preserve the recordings, to make them publicly available and encourage their use'

BL oral history of British Science

BL oral history of British Science contains in-depth oral history interviews documenting the lives and careers of scientists, engineers, technologists and their teams at the centre of Britain’s scientific endeavour in the 20th century

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

CND is an organisation that campaigns non-violently to achieve British nuclear disarmament

Feminist Archive North holds a wide variety of material relating to the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) from 1969 to the present. Topics covered by FAN include the women’s peace movement, women’s studies, women and development, and violence against women

Feminist Archive South

Feminist Archive South in Bristol, England, houses national and international material relating to the history of feminism, c.1960-2000. The archive has recently been awarded a grant from the HLF to catalogue Ellen Malos’ archive

Feminist Audio Books

Feminist Audio Books is a postal library service offering audio books on loan to women in UK who do not find print easy to use. Feminist, women-focused and lesbian books

Feminist Library

The Feminist Library in London is an archive collection of Women’s Liberation Movement literature, particularly second-wave materials dating from the late 1960s to the 1990s

Football Association (FA)

The FA is the governing body of English football, The FA Cup and the England team

Fragen Project at the Aletta Archive

The Fragen Project aims to collect the most important texts from the feminist movements of the second part of the 20th century

Glasgow School of Art

Glasgow School of Art is a university-level institution for creative education and research in fine art, design and architecture

Guerilla Girls

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Hall-Carpenter Archive at LSE

The Hall-Carpenter Archive is the largest source for the study of gay activism in Britain, which followed the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957.

History Workshop Journal

The History Workshop Journal is a forum that 'offers debates, reflections, tools, and resources for anyone interested in connecting historical research with present-day politics, whether through engagement with public history, social history, the history of sexuality and gender, or intimate histories of everyday life’

Inclusion London

Inclusion London is an organisation promoting equality for deaf and disabled people in London

Jacky Fleming

Jacky Fleming is a cartoonist and feminist whose work has appeared in Spare Rib as well as in a series of books including Be a Bloody Train Driver (London: Pengiun, 1991)

Leeds Animation Workshop was set up in 1976 to produce and distribute animated films on social issues. The Workshop also runs short introductory courses in animation

London Feminist Film Festival

London Feminist Film Festival is an organisation set up to 'as a response to the under representation of women in the film industry, as well as to the lack of films addressing feminist issues and the fact that the representation of women on screen is often narrow and stereotypical.'

Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize is an annual literary prize that 'aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.'

The National Coal Mining Museum is a museum that 'aims to keep coal mining alive by collecting and preserving the industry’s rich heritage, creating enjoyable and inspiring ways to learn for people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities.'

National Organisation for Women (NOW)

NOW is the largest organization of feminist activists in the USA. It was founded in 1966 and currently has 500,000 contributing members

OWAAD was formed in 1978. It was an umbrella group bringing together black women's organisations related to different issues

Oral history of the miners strike

Paul Gibbon’s Oral history of the miners strike aims to ‘provide a systematic narrative of the strike and its aftermath, focused on a single village, and based on recorded interviews with local activists’

Our Bodies Ourselves (OBOS)

OBOS, also known as the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, is a global nonprofit, public interest organization based in Cambridge, Mass. It is a vitally important text to the WLM

Patriarchy

Patriarchy is a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it

Shakti Women's Aid is an organisation based in Edinburgh, working since 1986 to offer support, advocacy and information to all black / minority ethnic women, children and young people experiencing and/or fleeing domestic abuse

The TUC represents many of Britain's workers. It has 54 affiliated unions representing 6.2 million working people. It negotiates in Europe, and at home build links with political parties, business, local communities and wider society.

Turner Prize

The Turner Prize is an annual art prize awarded to 'an artist under 50, living, working or born in Britain for an outstanding exhibition in the previous 12 months.'

Unfinished Histories of Alternative Theatre

Unfinished Histories is a project recording British Alternative Theatre, 1968 -88, through interviews and the collecting of archive material

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 after the Second World War by 51 countries committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.

Winning Equal Pay: the value of women's work is part of The Union Makes Us Strong website and is a partnership initiative between London Metropolitan University and the Trades Union Congress to record the long campaign to achieve equal pay for women.

Witness Workshops

Witness Workshops are oral history workshops organised by Dr Rachel Cohen. Workshops explored history of the WLM across the UK.

Women and the Church (WATCH)

WATCH is an organisation that campaigns for women's equal representation in the church

Women in Black

Women in Black is a world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to injustice, war, militarism and other forms of violence.

Women in Football

Women in Football is a network of professional women working in and around football industry